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®l|p Negro UnmattB iFiftu 
^ lears nf Wrnbam 



—BY— 

C F. GRAVES 

PRESIDENT 

ROANOKE COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE 
Elizabeth City, N. C. 



Price 10c. 



mmi -9 1918 



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COPYRIGHT APPLIED FOR 

1918. 



OCT -9 1918 



©CI.A5()53-J4 



THE NEGRO WOMAN'S FIFTY YEARS 

OF FREEDOM. 



The declaration of the Emancipation 
Proclamation in America forms one of the 
most decisive political events in American 
Annals, and in the far reaching extent and 
magnitude of the results it has afforded, per- 
haps there is no event in all the world that 
equals it. And why? Because of the great 
meaning it has had upon all the civilization 
of the world from that day to this and for 
what it seems destined to do toward engag- 
ing the most mature minds and hearts of the 
ages since that memorable document was 
given to men Progress has been the watch- 
word of this Emancipated race. Their pent 
up energies apparently only awaited the di- 
vine magic of some human touch before it 
should spring up into the most redolent and 
resplendent fruitage. The records will show 
that there has been no similar evolution of 
progress along all lines of any people the 
v/orld over as has been of the Emancipated 
Negro people of America. Even the Negro's 



bitterest enemy naively admits that he has 
furnished in his years of jubilee the most 
appalling data of things accomplished to his 
credit. This achievement, too, it will be well 
to note has been made in the face of odds. 
It has been made with fightings without and 
fears, within. And it argues strongly in his 
favor as a human being made in the image 
of his Maker and endowed with certain in- 
alienable rights and privilege ^j, instead of 
being a brute or an inferior animal. 

But what may be said of the American 
Negro woman in the midst of all this prestige 
and progress? Now while our earthly lord 
and master man has taken the lion's share 
in this glory; it might be interesting to note 
the Negro woman's activity during this time. 
It will never be possible to tell everything 
satisfactory of her tender and devoted achiev- 
ments with her brother by his side during 
this season of freedom anymore than it will 
not be able to tell of her greatness during the 
days of slavery. So acceptable were her 
deeds of true womanliness during the slavery 
days that her master refers to her in the 
tenderest terms of devotion and calls her 
"black mammy". Let us in this day of free- 
dom call her not only mother, but the queen 
of the most dearly cherished habitation on 



earth the home. In the days of slavery her 
masters called her "auntie" because of her 
endearing qualities of heart and soul, now 
may we not only woo her with terms of 
simple friendship, but may we sing her 
praises in the most exalted strains of loveli- 
ness and nobility. 

Let us see first in her years of freedom 
what she has really done that merits the ad- 
miration of her brothers who are stronger 
and the world at large? Her first work since 
freedom was to show her great spirit of self 
sacrifice. This gi^eat principle in itself is 
sufficient to commend her to the thoughtful 
and favorable consideration of all who give 
the matter any attention. Fifty years ago 
she was let loose from her master's planta- 
tion and the "great house" with the men, 
with nothing save the discipline she had re- 
ceived in that house. She had no house of 
her own and a very scanty budget of cloth- 
ing, her meat was the proverbial "locust and 
wild honey"; like her raiment of the figur- 
ative camel's hair. However, she set about 
immediately to prepare his food, to nurture 
his children, at her breast, in carrying them 
about, by her side, working along with him 
in the sand bottoms, on the hillsides and 
amid the blackened stumps still s|andin,i 



ry 

?3 



from the sad havoc of the war's devastation 
and the soldier's bitterness. The Negro 
woman set to work to rescue for her hus- 
band the coveted ''forty acres and a mule". 
This test was, of course, the first great and 
most trying test that she was called upon to 
make since freedom and right well did she 
perform that first work and in the present 
generation of mothers there pre some who 
learned from their mothers all of the old and 
tried common sense of thosa early years. 
The test of self sacrifice is a noble test and 
it requires great moral courage to carry it 
forth. And the Negro woman of America is 
to be congratulated most highly upon the ex- 
hibition of this trial at a time when it was 
most needed and when it counted for most. 
For we have been properly informed that 
prophecies and predictions, not only con- 
cerning the future of Negro men, but that 
predictions concerning Negro women and 
their downward career were as truly rife and 
mischievous. But let the historian and the 
searcher of events find any superior in all 
the world of the self sacrific and devotion of 
the Negro woman during the period im- 
mediately following the slave period in this 
country. Notwithstanding her self sacri- 
ficial position at that time a few Negi'o wom- 



en found time to make an opening in the 
field of literature, art and music. And as a 
result a few women in the North, such as 
Frances Ellen Harper Watkins, and Ida Wells 
Barnett, and Mary Church Terrell, gained 
some notice as literary women. This was 
natural because the North was not then 
bound as the South had been. Sisseretta 
Jones, commonly known as "Black Patti" 
gained distinction in music and some others 
in other pursuits, several of whom have held 
up well to this day; therefore in that period 
following the slave traffic the Negro woman's 
nobleness of heart and virtue shone forth in 
her fine principle of self sacrifice. 

Another good principle, besides the spirit 
of self sacrifice is that the Negro woman has 
shown since freedom is her material ac- 
complishments or her executiveness. I be- 
lieve the Negro v/oman learned the art of 
economy from her service with her husband 
while undogoing all the vicissitudes of I'le 
after freedom. And while he was laboring 
away at some graver problem and also be- 
ing burdened with the larger responsibility 
of caring for a large family of children the 
wife and mother had time to reflect and ob- 
serve her husbands Vv^asts and she has put 
this knowledge to good use in a way that 



has materially counted for her v/isdoni and 
sagacity in this particular. Necessity also 
possibly drove her to material ends. Food 
and raiment for the family to meet the ever 
increasing requirements as their eyes became 
opened to the things cf tlielr masters and 
mistress' use. Therefore enterprise of var- 
ious kinds such as groceries, miliinery shoi^s, 
and dress goods establishments, beauty parl- 
ors, and eating houses, and hotels have 
grov^^n up in large numbers all over the land. 
And of late years the Negro woman has de- 
veloped a considerable industry in liair and 
scalp treatment business. You will, also faid 
that many Negro women are acti'/ely en- 
gaged in supplying the local markets with 
choice vegetables and milk, eggs and poultry. 
All of which shows to what extent the Negro 
woman has learned to plan and execute since 
the days of slavery, a^d since her day of 
freedom. I would have our reader believe 
that there are more industries yet to be con- 
summated bj^ Negro women. Then there are 
larger results that we may point you to along 
the line of planning and execution that col- 
ored w^omen have brought to pass. Consider 
the St. Luke organization piloted principally 
by a Negro woman, Mrs. Maggie L. Walker, 
there is also the Tent Sisters which is an en- 



tirely officered organization that is given over 
to our women and these organizations of a 
secret nature are making good as well as the 
Samarttans, Eastern Star, Household of 
Ruth, The Courts o fCalanthe, Lady Knights 
Maccabees and any number of organizations 
of that character that are expressive of the 
executiveness of the Negro woman. Still an- 
other field of executiveness in which is show- 
ing her great worth is in the building up and 
managing of schools of learning and in this 
particular Miss Nannie H. Burroughs, and 
Mary Bethune, and Madam Hawkins stand 
in the front rank and almost a pioneer. All 
of these clubs and organizations of that 
character speak a strong testimony for the 
material worth and the splendid execution 
of our Negro women. 

But possibly by far the greatest contribu- 
tion that has been made by Negro women to 
the race vrithin her fifty years of freedom is 
the contribution to the church life. Since the 
greatest amossing of welth by Negro men 
has been made in their church work it is but 
natural t oexpect the same of women. It is 
a reasonable estimation to make, that in the 
erection of church buildings by our men that 
women have given possibly three fifths of the 
money by their energies. It is a still safer 



estimate that they contribute nine tenths of 
the spiritual life to the church. And while 
this apparent spiritual surplus is not directly 
a material acquisition we venture the as- 
sertion that those who build fine churches 
would feel lonely without the over enthus- 
iasm_ of the women to give them zost and 
heart. Now when all of this is taken into 
account it forms a very large bill of credit 
for our women since the days of slavery. At 
present the Negro women are interesting 
themselves in certain forms of civic right- 
eousness in an immensely needy way in many 
cf the communities both large and small. 
Fifty years ago they themselves were en- 
slaved by physical restraint by their mast- 
ers; todr.y they seek to free their less fortu- 
nate sisters from the boast of heraidry and 
the proud man's contumely, hatred and scorn 
They are seeking to wrench young women 
from the jaws of death and the mouth of 
beastly passion. Such Negro vv^omen as S. 
Willie Lay en and Mrs. C. L. Black well of 
Philadelphia are representatives of a class 
of women who are proving to be as great 
emancipators in one sense as Abraham Lin- 
coln himself. Perhaps many a young Negro 
girl v/lio has been soft and unrestrained owes 
her moral rectitude to these good wcinien in 

pD 1.0.4, 



those cities. And like examples in other 
cities. These houses of correction managed 
by these women for the purpose of rescu- 
ing these unfortunate girls from both the 
white and black slave traffic form a most 
valuable contribution that the Negro women 
are making to her race and to humanity in 
this country today. This rescue work is a 
means of preventing young women from be- 
coming the prey of passion and the lust of 
appetite from the baser men. Then, too, the 
interest Negro women are taking in Y. M. 
and Y. W. C. A. and the general rescue work 
of men is simply gratifying to all who read 
the signs of the times from whatever way it 
is viewed. The line of usefulness "has gone 
out into all the earth and their glory unto 
ends of it." The civic work of our v/omen 
in these different ways, both in small and in 
large communities, is an enduring monument 
to their gentleness and goodness and were it 
not for these splendid qualities in them our 
dial of progress would be set many merid- 
ians backward and our glory would be shorn 
of its fine lustre and its brilliant light. 

But this list of good works might be great- 
ly increased on their part but let us close by 
noting again their self sacrifice as shown in 
the sweet and womanly w^ay that they labor- 



ed v/ith the men to keep the "wheel movmg" 
when there was ''no eye to pity ncr hand to 
save" except their own. Their consummate 
skill in beginning and managing their own 
business enterprises as shown in their num- 
erous organizations and clubs and their great 
power in church and civic life and affairs. 
This Negro woman has built her a home and 
patterned it after the most costly fashion. 
She has reared her children and stimulated 
them to the highest pride, surrounded her- 
self with the most excellent ideals that can 
not be gainsaid, and Paul Lawrence Dunba.r, 
cur poet laureate, says in his "The Party", 
"If you see them with their mistress you 
couldn't sv/are which was which." All of this 
has been accomplished since their day of 
freedom set in, and now since they have 
achieved so much within their day of free- 
dom under really adverse and trying circum- 
stances, what might be expected of her to 
accomplish within the next fifty years of 
freedom? 



- '.j^L^l 



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Printed In The 
LINOTYPE PRINTERY 
By Jack We XI s 
507 E. Fearing Street 
Elizabeth City, N. C. 
1 9 1 -J 



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